November 2016

District Improvement - One Student at a Time

Last spring, third
through eighth grade students
in Plymouth Public
Schools participated in statewide
assessments called the
Smarter Balanced Assessments.
These assessments
were designed to reflect the
Common Core Standards that were adopted about four
years ago. The results reflect any given student’s performance
on a single day, and are considered a “snapshot” of
academic performance to be analyzed alongside additional
sources of data such as classroom performance, projects,
tests and other work samples throughout the year. Plymouth
staff have been working together to reflect on these
results to determine how they can help to inform curriculum,
instruction and assessment practices.

Overall we saw great growth with the number of students
in the district reaching the proficiency level on these
assessments. The percentage of students reaching the proficiency
level or higher in language arts increased from
46.3% in 2014-15 to 55.1% in 2015-16 for an increase of
8.8 percentage points. Similarly, in mathematics, students
grew 8.5 percentage points from 36.6% proficiency in
2014-15 to 45.1% proficiency in 2015-16. A few key areas
of growth are how the sixth and seventh graders grew
from year to year in math and the overall performance of
the third graders in math and fifth graders in literacy. This
level of growth helped us to move up in the rankings of
districts with similar economic backgrounds as well as
those towns surrounding Plymouth geographically. Additional
data shows that Plymouth Public Schools outperformed
the magnet schools that most commonly draw students
from town in almost all areas.

Teachers and staff across the district are highly committed
to the success of all students. We have made many
instructional shifts in the past few years to move students
towards authentic and rigorous math and literacy instruction.
We will continue to make sure these methods are
working and continue to improve upon them. We truly
appreciate the level of commitment from the Board of
Education and residents in supporting this work and the
students as a whole. For additional details and a copy of
the full presentation shared with the Board of Education
on October 12th, please visit our website at plymouth.k12.ct.us.